


The Age of Accountability

by Lauralot



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Bilingual Character(s), Dammit Westfahl, Fluff, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Sign Language, Team as Family, Trust Issues, Vegetarians & Vegans, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-03-31 11:32:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3976522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauralot/pseuds/Lauralot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Natasha finally track down the traitorous STRIKE agents.</p><p>But it's hard to lock them up when they're kindergarteners.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Subtitles for the Spanish should appear when you hover over the text.

“Someone’s on the move, Steve,” Natasha’s voice crackles through the comm link. “Sam’s got the back exit covered—you found them yet?”

“Almost there.” Steve tightens his hand around one of the shield’s straps, quickening his pace. His footsteps are echoing around the empty HYDRA base, but they’re already aware of the Avengers’ presence. Conflict is unavoidable. “Are you sure it’s them?” 

There’s a sudden explosion from a room toward the end of the hall, a flash of blinding light. Over the ringing in his ears, Steve can make out the familiar voice of STRIKE Agent Anders. “Dammit, Westfahl!” 

“Pretty sure,” Natasha replies as Steve doubles his speed.

Brock Rumlow vanished from his hospital room three months to the day after the destruction of the helicarriers, leaving only the handcuffs on his bedrails behind. He was in no shape to walk to the bathroom on his own, let alone make a break for it, so either HYDRA had wanted him back or another organization had picked him up for interrogation. Steve had suspected the former. How much information could someone extract from a man with third degree burns on over forty percent of his body? He’d already be incoherent from agony, and if they tried anything further, he’d likely drop dead of infection. 

And besides, the other STRIKE members had respected Rumlow. Willingly followed him, enjoyed his company. Why wouldn’t they rescue him? Everyone had liked Rumlow. Steve had—

He shakes his head. None of that matters anymore. Get these traitors into custody and see what they know about Bucky. Bucky’s all that matters now. They have to know something.

From the room with the explosion, a child cries out.

Steve skids to a halt. “They’ve got hostages,” he hisses through the comm. “At least one of them’s a child.”

“Copy that.” Natasha again. “Stay where you are, I’m moving in for a visual. I won’t be seen.” 

He’s about to respond when Anders shouts again. “Come on, Izzy, we’ve got to get—”

The child cries louder. “ _¡No! ¡Mamá! ¡Mamá!_ ”

“Come on!”

A new voice, a young boy’s, that has to yell to be heard over the child’s wailing. “Fuck off, lady!” 

Steve’s creeping forward, intel be damned—he’s not about to let Anders harm children or make some kid an orphan—when Natasha’s voice is back in his ear. “Five hostages. All kids. Anders is the only hostile I have a visual on. She doesn’t appear to be armed.”

That’s all he needs to hear.

The shield misses Anders by a scant few inches, bounding off the wall and adhering itself to the magnets sewn into Steve’s sleeve. It’s a warning, a promise of the damage he can do. It looks like they’re in a research space turned makeshift hospital room. There’s machinery all around, appearing streaked from the explosion but otherwise unharmed. There’s an IV stand knocked to the floor beside a bed, dirty bandages strewn over the sheets. Also on the bed is a young boy, swimming in what looks like a massively oversized nightgown. The other kids are spread around the room, each in large shirts that reach well past their knees. There are other clothes scattered on the floor.

What is all this?

“Anders.” Steve keeps his voice steady. She already knows what he’s capable of, and there’s no sense in frightening the kids any further. “Where’s Rumlow?”

Anders doesn’t look at him. Her gaze darts over all of the children, her face twisting into something desperate and frightened. She doesn’t answer. She runs. 

He can’t follow her. Not when the kids are here and Westfahl and Murphy must be lurking nearby. “Natasha.” 

“On it.” From her breathing, she’s already running. 

For a second, there’s silence. 

Then the crying starts back up.

Steve turns. There’s a boy, three or four, huddled on the floor and rubbing at his eyes. His hair is black, hanging in his face. And he’s hiccupping, hysterical.

“Hey,” Steve says softly. “It’s okay.” He looks around the room, makes eye contact with each child. The dark-haired boy on the bed, maybe five. The blonde girl peeking warily from around a filing cabinet. A tall boy watching from a corner. And the last child, staring over a heap of machinery. “You’re okay,” he says, in the same voice he uses at children’s hospitals and charity drives. “We’ll get you home. I promise.” 

“ _¡Mamá!_ ” the youngest child screams. Steve tries to put a hand on his shoulder, but he strikes out before shuffling backward. _"¡No! ¡Quiero Mamá!_ "

Spanish. All right. He can do this. Steve crouches down, keeping what he hopes reads as a safe distance from the boy. " _Está bien. Está bien._ "

The boy sniffs, but he finally looks up, surprised. He wipes at his nose. “ _Quiero Mamá_.”

" _Lo sé_." Steve smiles. “ _Vamos a, uh, vamos a encontrar tu mamá. Me llamo Steve. ¿Quién es usted?_ ”

The boy sniffs again, settling on the floor with his legs crossed. " _Me llamo Isaac._ ”

“Isaac?” he repeats. 

Isaac nods. 

Steve turns his head, and the blonde girl has moved a bit closer, beside the filing cabinet now instead of behind it. “What’s your name, honey?” 

She seems to deliberate before speaking, wringing her hands nervously. “I’m Cynthia.” 

“Cynthia?” Mercer’s name. What’s going on? 

His gaze falls to the boy on the bed, who lifts his chin and speaks without prompting. “Brock.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations for the Spanish are as follows:
> 
>  _Quiero Mamá_ : I want Mama  
>  _Está bien_ : It's okay  
>  _Lo sé_ : I know  
>  _Vamos a encontrar tu mamá. Me llamo Steve. ¿Quién es usted?_ : We'll find your mama. My name is Steve. Who are you?  
>  _Me llamo Isaac_ : My name is Isaac.


	2. Chapter 2

“There.” Steve pulls the paper from the sticky backs of the Band-Aid and presses it to Not-Westfahl’s knee. “All better, see?”

Not-Westfahl nods, sniffing. He’d taken about two steps away from the machinery he’d been hiding behind before tripping over the hem of his shirt and gouging himself on another piece of equipment. Whenever they track down the kid’s parents, they’ll need to see if he’s up to date in his tetanus boosters. Because he has parents out there looking for him. Because this is _not_ Westfahl.

Anders and the others must have threatened these kids until they responded to the STRIKE names. Isaac. Brock. Jack. Cynthia. Westfahl, who would only give the last name because of ‘stranger danger,’ which must make some sort of sense in his traumatized mind. But to what end? It’s not as if anyone’s going to believe that Brock Rumlow’s suddenly six years old and deserves to be tried as a minor. And why isn’t there a kid answering as Julie?

“Trail went cold,” Natasha announces, appearing in the doorway. “I swept both floors and the basement, and Falcon’s getting a bird’s eye view of the surrounding area. We’ll find her.”

Steve nods. Finding Anders—or Rumlow or, hell, even Bucky—comes second to getting these children home safely. And maybe that was the whole point of abducting them.

“So.” Natasha doesn’t step inside, tilting her head to indicate Steve come to her. “What have we got?”

“Five kids. The youngest is three, the oldest six. One from New York, one from Indianapolis, one from _Walla Walla, Washington_. They all claim they got here just before I did, no idea how it happened. But when I ask who they are, they’ll only give me STRIKE names, even the toddler.” He glances back at the group of them, all seated in a row on the bed. Except Isaac, who’s on the floor, playing with a man’s boot. There are socks, boots, pants, belts, and underwear strewn around. There were also hostlers and guns, which Steve quickly moved away from the children. “You can’t cause that level of brainwashing in less than a day.”

“You’d be surprised what you can accomplish with the right motivation,” Natasha says. “Are they armed?”

“They’re _kids_.”

“So was I,” she says flatly.

Steve’s about to respond when there’s a tug on his pant leg. “’Merica!”

He looks down to find Isaac, hands outstretched, reaching for his shield. “’Merica!”

At least there’s that. These kids would probably be twice as panicked if Captain America weren’t here. Steve smiles, lowering himself to the boy’s level. “ _Sí, soy_ Captain America. _¿Quieres mi_ —” Hell, what's the word? “Shield?”

Isaac nods. “Wanna see.”

He speaks some English, then. Good to know. Steve’s letting the kid run his hands along the shield’s surface when the boy calling himself Brock speaks. “You’re not Captain America.”

Steve looks up, keeping his smile in place. “Sure I am. Why do you say that?”

“Captain America’s dead,” the boy says, and the other kids nod. “Everybody knows that.”

His stomach clenches. Is that what STRIKE told these kids? ‘Captain America’s dead, no one’s coming to save you’? What purpose does that serve? What was their end game? “If that’s what the people who took you said, they lied. I’m right here, see my shield?” Steve holds it up and Isaac whines, little fingers straining upward after it.

“Captain America’s plane crashed,” Brock says, swinging his legs from the side of the bed. “There aren’t superheroes anymore.”

Steve walks toward the children, though not close enough to spook them. “I promise that’s not true. See? There’s the Black Widow. And you know Falcon, right? He’s right outside. I can even introduce you to Iron Man while we’re waiting for your mommies and daddies to get you.” They’ll have to go to the tower; Isaac’s too young to know his phone number, so they need to run his prints. And while the local police could do that, they’d come swarming down here and confiscate everything. Steve doesn’t have time to deal with making requests for access or governmental bureaucracy; the files and equipment in here might lead him to Bucky. He can’t let that be comprised.

The kids only stare as if he’s spoken Greek at them.

“You some kinda freak?” asks the boy who says his name is Jack.

“He is.” Natasha is at Steve’s side then, all smiles. “But he’s one of the good guys, I promise. Now, what do you say we get you all some ice cream and then get you home?”

“ _¡Helado!_ ” Isaac shouts, hopping up and down.


	3. Chapter 3

Steve isn’t sure why there are cartons of ice cream stocked among the Quinjet’s supplies, but he doesn’t question it. Thankfully, neither do the children. However frightened they must be, however suspicious of these people claiming to be heroes, they’re still young enough to be easily swayed by ice cream and the chance to explore an airplane. The promise of an up close look at Falcon’s wings further sweetens the deal.

Once they’re all settled in, Sam takes out the cartons and the kids begin shouting for their preferred flavor. Steve isn’t surprised that most of them gravitate to the chocolate.

“ _¡Vainilla!_ ” Isaac shouts, rocking in his seat. “ _¡Vainilla!_ ”

“It’s vanilla, stupid,” says Westfahl. He takes the first bite of his chocolate and ends up with half of it on his face.

“What he said is right too,” Steve admonishes. “You need to apologize.”

The child makes a sound that might be a ‘sorry’ around a new spoonful of the ice cream.

Once they all have a bowl and are strapped down in their seats, Natasha takes off. Isaac gets maybe three bites into his ice cream and nods off, spoon falling to the floor. Steve unbuckles himself to retrieve it, forcing down a pang of worry as he glances at the sleeping boy. The odds are high that Isaac’s fingerprints won’t be on file. They’re usually taken in kindergarten, not preschool, and even then, it’s only if the parents consent. For all Steve knows, Isaac may be an undocumented immigrant, and he can hardly guess at the strife that could come of Isaac’s parents claiming him in that circumstance, if the Avengers even manage to track them down.

But at least they’d have their child back.

When he looks away, the other kids are watching him, looking wary. Now that the novelty of the situation’s wearing off, their fear must be returning. He offers another smile. “We’ll be at the Avengers’ Tower soon. You’ll get some real clothes, and you can meet Iron Man and Hawkeye.”

The boys just stare blankly.

“I wanna look out the window,” Cynthia says.

“As soon as the plane’s up where it needs to be, you can,” Sam assures her. “It’s not safe to do a lot of moving around before that.”

She huffs, crossing her arms.

Their reservations seem to melt when the plane reaches the proper altitude and they gather around Natasha, asking question after question about what keeps the plane in the air, where she learned to fly, how she knows where to go, and what the inside of a cloud looks likes. If all the chatter irritates Nat, she doesn’t let it show, although she can’t quite kept the displeasure from her face when the Quinjet hits a spot of turbulence and Westfahl gets sick on her shoes.

Sam is still explaining to the kid why it’s important to apologize for throwing up on someone even if you didn’t mean to throw up on them by the time the Quinjet reaches the tower. Natasha heads off to scrub her boots as Steve unbuckles Isaac and lifts his still-sleeping form.

Maria is waiting for him at the doors. “Steve.” Her eyes fall to the sleeping toddler resting his head on Steve’s shoulder. “Is this the one whose prints you need?”

He nods as Sam ushers the other children inside. “Yeah. He didn’t know his phone number. Said he lived in Indianapolis, but I had to coax that out of him. I don’t know if it’s right. How long do you think it’ll take to search all the databases?”

“JARVIS is faster than the police systems would be.” Maria already has an inkpad and paper waiting at a small table inside. “We can start the search in Indiana and spread across the country if nothing turns up. But there’s a lot of fingerprints on record in the US, Steve. It’ll probably take some time.”

Steve nods, gently shifting Isaac to his lap so they can press his fingers into the ink. “If we can’t find anything in the US, it might be worth trying Mexico. Or other Spanish-speaking countries.”

“All right.” Maria gently pushes Isaac’s hands down on the paper, then wipes at his fingers with a moist towelette. “I can get him into a bed if you like, but he might do better waking up with a familiar face.”

Standing, he nods again. “I’ll keep him with me.”

The other kids aren’t far, huddled around Sam, who’s searching for something age-appropriate on a holographic TV screen. They all seem far more interested in the screen itself than any of the channels Sam’s flipping through, but that’s to be expected. Most people don’t see Stark’s level of tech anywhere but on the news or in movies.

The kids are still wearing the oversized shirts—except Brock, who’s in what Steve had taken for a nightshirt before realizing it’s an overlarge hospital gown—and Steve frowns. “JARVIS?”

**YES, CAPTAIN ROGERS?** comes the reply, and the children gasp, looking around.

“Do you think you can determine these kids’ clothing sizes and put in an order for some real things for them to wear? Delivered as soon as possible, you can charge it to my account.”

**CERTAINLY, CAPTAIN ROGERS.**

“Captain Rogers!” Westfahl whispers, having recovered from his bout of airsickness. “He _is_ Captain America.”

“Duh,” says Cynthia, flipping her hair back over her shoulders. “I knew that all along. He’s got the shield.”

Jack says nothing, just scowls. As Steve’s putting Isaac down on the couch, Brock bolts up, stomping out the door.

“Sam.” Steve straightens up, crossing the room in a few strides. “Can you watch the—”

“I’ve got this.” Sam gives up on the television, swiping the screen away, and turns to regard the kids. “Hey, why don’t you tell JARVIS what kind of clothes you like best?”

He finds Brock just down the hallway, crouched behind a potted fern. The boy’s arms are crossed, his chest heaving with anger. Steve doesn’t touch him, just settles down at the opposite wall, giving the kid time to breathe.

“Do you miss your parents?” he asks once Brock seems a little calmer. “We’ll get you home soon, don’t worry.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Brock mutters. There’s grime on his feet—the base hadn’t been cleaned in weeks—and he picks at it, frowning. “You’re _not_ Captain America, no matter what you told your dumb computer to call you. You’re _not_.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“He’s _dead_!” the boy shouts. “There aren’t superheroes anymore! Everyone knows that! People just pretend like those dumb old dead guys still matter so they’ll feel better. It’s _stupid_. You’re stupid! People aren’t special just ‘cause you want ‘em to be.”

Steve sits, silent, watching Brock collect himself again. That doesn’t sound like the type of thoughts a six year old would come up with on his own. And, regardless of what Natasha had said about motivation, it doesn’t seem like something his captors could hammer in over the course of one day. “Did your parents tell you that?”

“So what?”

Instead of answering, Steve digs through his pocket and pulls out his ID badge for the tower. Happy always insists they keep them visible at all times while inside, but no one ever listens. “Here.” He slides the badge across the floor to the boy, hoping he’s still too young to consider the possibility of forged IDs. “Can you read that?”

Brock glares before he picks up the badge. His lips move, silently sounding out the words. _Steve Rogers. Captain America._ The second title had been added at Stark’s personal request. Brock stares at the badge, shaking his head. But when he looks up, his eyes are wide, glistening.

“You’re him?” he whispers, breathless. “You’re really—?”

Steve nods.

When Maria finds them, they’re still in the hallway, though Brock has moved beside Steve, face buried in the man’s side. “I got a match on the little boy,” she says. Her brow is slightly creased.

Blinking, Steve tilts his head. “Has it even been an hour?”

“I restricted the search to Indianapolis and asked JARVIS to check the prints against anyone named Isaac to begin with,” Maria explains. “Just in case the name was real. Started the search with juvenile records as well. We matched the prints to an Isaac Murphy, believe it or not. Had his prints taken at IPS 84, with the rest of his kindergarten class.”

Steve feels his own brows knit together. “But he’s three.”

“That’s one snag.” Maria’s too stone-faced to be playing a joke. “Here’s another: The prints went into police records in 1992. The kid you’ve got in there? Going by the police files, he was born in 1987.”


	4. Chapter 4

Before Steve can react, Brock pipes up. “So he’s from the future?”

Frowning, Maria and Steve both stare at him. “What year do you think it is?” Steve asks.

Brock’s wide-eyed interest drains, leaving him with a sullen pout. He glares down at the floor, drawing away from Steve a little. Like he expects them to laugh, to reveal the conversation as a prank. Steve feels a pang in his chest and rests his hand on Brock’s shoulder.

“Hey,” he says. “It’s okay, I promise. No one’s making fun of you, honey. We just want to get you home. And we can’t do that without your help. So can you please tell us what year it is?”

“1976.” Brock’s tone is scathing but he still won’t look up. Over his head, Steve and Maria’s eyes meet.

“They must be coached,” Steve says. There’s no way he’s seeing the childhood versions of his traitorous teammates. No way.

Maria schools her expression back to impassivity, kneeling to Brock’s level. “What was the last movie you saw?” she asks.

He’s scowling again. “We don’t go to a lotta movies. Dad’s too busy.” A pause, and then, hesitantly: “Maybe we’ll see Rocky when it comes out.”

“Do you have a favorite band?”

“Fleetwood Mac.”

Arching a brow, Maria turns her gaze back to Steve. “Pretty thorough coaching.”

“HYDRA can plant fingerprint records,” Steve insists, tensing reflexively. “We know they can _take_ memories, so what’s to say they can’t implant them?”

Brock finally lifts his head, staring between the two of them.

“To what end?” Maria asks, and how can she be seriously entertaining this insanity?

He feels his teeth grinding. “To stay out of prison! You can’t lock up a bunch of kids for being HYDRA.”

“You got rid of HYDRA in World War II,” Brock says nervously. “They’re not around anymore.”

_No, of course they’re not,_ Steve wants to say, but he can’t bring himself to lie to this boy. Instead, he squeezes his shoulder, forcing a smile. “You’re safe here. I promise. We’re going to get you home.”

Brock doesn’t answer. He just bites his lip, looking back down at the floor.

Holding in a sigh, Steve turns his attention back to Maria. “You can’t seriously be considering this.”

Straightening up, she crosses her arms. “I live in a world with aliens and Norse gods. There are very few things I won’t at least consider.”

“Aliens?” Brock echoes.

“The STRIKE retinal scans are still on file,” Maria says, giving Brock a small smile. “JARVIS could scan the kids and compare if you want. Unless you think they could have altered the children’s retinas.”

It wouldn’t surprise Steve if HYDRA had the technology to do _that_ too, but not in less than a day. And not without causing discomfort or leaving some sign. “Hey kiddo,” he says, nudging the boy up. “You want to see something really cool the computer can do that’ll help us get you home?”

There’s a flicker of anxiousness over the boy’s features before he masks it, tilting his chin up. “Okay.”

They lead Brock back to the room with the others. JARVIS has already had clothing delivered from a local children’s boutique, along with a box of pull-ups as they weren’t sure of Isaac’s level of toilet training. Sam’s helping the kids sort out the items in their sizes.

“I can take Cynthia to the bathroom to get dressed,” Maria offers. “You want to get them changed before or after the scans?”

“Before.” The kids must be feeling vulnerable enough, far from home and barely clothed. Steve doesn’t want to add to that sense of helplessness if it can be avoided.

Cynthia’s new shirt has a kitten printed on the front, curled up around a ball of yarn. “ _Gato_ kitty!” Isaac says, trying to grab the shirt as she holds it out of his reach. “ _Gato_ kitty!”

“That shirt’s too big for you,” Sam says, guiding him back to his own clothing. “Once you get your clothes on, we can find you some kitty coloring pages, okay?”

Isaac just whines. Steve wonders how much English he comprehends.

When Sam ushers the boys into the men’s room to change, Steve stands outside the door. His shoulders slump, forehead resting against the wall. They’re _not_ HYDRA. They’re innocent kids and they’re frightened enough.

“It could be an act, you know.”

Opening his eyes, Steve turns to find Natasha standing there, hands on her hips. “What?”

“If they turn out to be HYDRA,” she says, continuing before he can protest. “Whatever happened to their bodies, we don’t know that it also affected their minds. The whole thing could be an act on their part to gain our sympathy, lower our guards. Wouldn’t be the first time kids have been used for infiltration.”

“No one’s that good of an actor.”

She just stares. The words _I was_ hang unspoken in the air.

He sighs. “You were trained for years, Nat. It’s not the same.”

“They fooled all of us,” she counters. “Myself included. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get the drop on me, Steve? Not the sort of thing that happens every day, I can promise you that.”

But they were still agents then, only hiding their allegiance. There’s a big difference between hiding whose pocket they were in and playing a convincing child. It’s not the same thing. It can’t be.

He doesn’t get a chance to respond because Sam opens the door and the boys come filing out, twisting and turning to examine their new clothes from all angles. “These jeans are weird,” Brock says, tugging on the ankle hems.

“Shoes too,” says Jack.

Westfahl’s pants are slightly too long and Sam stops him in order to roll up the hem and keep them from tripping. Isaac’s meandering after the others, singing what Steve eventually recognizes to be a rendition of “The Cat Came Back.” He doesn’t seem to know all the words.

Maria leads Cynthia back to the others not long after, the girl’s hair now pulled back in a ponytail. Steve gathers them all on the couch again. Isaac’s squirming, humming to himself, but he’s probably too young to understand what’s going on anyway.

“Everyone has special fingerprints that don’t match anybody else’s, right?” Steve begins. “Well, your eyes have a special pattern too. JARVIS, our computer, can take a look at your eyes, sort of like an X-ray. It won’t touch you and you won’t feel it, but it’ll help us get you home. Anyone want to try it?”

Silence greets him apart from Isaac’s humming. Jack shifts, staring down at the floor.

“I can go first if you want,” Steve says. “So you can see what it looks like.”

“I’ll do it.” Brock stands up, shoving Westfahl’s feet out of his way as he does. “I’m not scared.”

He’s clearly nervous, but Steve only smiles. “Thanks. That’s really brave.”

Brock smiles back as JARVIS’s holo-screen flickers into the air.

**HELLO, YOUNG MAN. WOULD YOU ALLOW ME TO TAKE A RETINAL SCAN? THE PROCESS ONLY TAKES A FEW SECONDS. YOU MAY SEE A LIGHT, BUT IT WILL NOT BE BRIGHT ENOUGH TO HARM YOU.**

The boy swallows. “’Kay.”

**SCAN COMPLETE** , JARVIS says almost immediately after, and Brock blinks, surprised. He glances at Steve as if to confirm that nothing else is needed.

“Good job,” Steve tells him, patting him on the back. “You did so well, you—”

**I’VE FOUND A MATCH, CAPTAIN ROGERS.** The screen switches, now displaying two scans side by side. **THE BOY’S RETINAL SCAN IS IDENTICAL TO AGENT RUMLOW’S.**

Steve’s stomach plummets.

“Hey,” says Brock. “That’s my last name.”

Steve can’t answer.

“That’s great,” Natasha says, her voice bright and smile syrupy sweet. “That’ll help us get you home. Who wants to go next?”

Now that they’ve seen it’s not painful, the kids are clamoring for a turn. And each time, it’s a perfect match. Cynthia Mercer. Jack Rollins. Even Isaac Murphy, once they get the toddler to keep his eyes still long enough for JARVIS to get a look.

With each scan, the sinking feeling grows heavier and heavier. Steve half-expects to fall through the floor with the weight of it. It’s got to be a trick. It has to be. These kids, these sweet, innocent little children can’t be HYDRA. Rumlow cannot be the boy who was sniffling into Steve’s side, overcome with joy at the realization that there are heroes in the world.

“While you’re having an existential crisis,” Natasha murmurs in his ear, “I’m going to find out what they know.”

Steve starts, staring at the children. They’re all asking JARVIS questions. The AI pulls up a Youtube video of kittens, and Isaac freezes, transfixed. “You’re going to _interrogate_ a bunch of—”

“HYDRA agents? Yes.” She sighs. “Look, I know how to talk to children, Steve. And to spies. I’ve been both.”

“And if they don’t remember and end up traumatized?”

“Again, not out of my realm of experience.” Her face is smooth as ever, but there’s a far-off look in her eyes. Steve thinks it’s a sad one. “I know the kind of comfort I always wanted. I know what to do.”

He can’t argue with her. He’s nowhere near the right frame of mind to deal with this himself. “Who will you start with?”

“Who’s the easiest to crack?” Natasha responds. “Murphy, of course.”


	5. Chapter 5

“ _Rojo_ ,” Isaac says, reaching up to play with Natasha’s hair. “ _Bonito rojo._ ”

Stone-faced, Natasha picks Murphy up and carries him back to his own chair. This is the third time he’s climbed into her lap and the fifth time he’s gotten up from the table overall. The Avengers Tower has many things, but interrogation rooms with two-way mirrors are not among them, so Steve and Sam are watching through the small window in the conference room’s door.

She speaks too lowly for them to hear her words, but Isaac doesn’t have much of an indoor voice, so most everything he says is audible. He’ll respond in English when spoken to in English, it seems, but when left to his own devices he’ll usually start talking in Spanish. Steve recalls Murphy once saying that his father barely speaks Spanish, so he must have spent more time in his youth around his mother.

“Hair dryer?” Isaac asks. He’s said that a couple of times before. Steve’s guessing it’s what the kid thinks Natasha means when she says ‘HYDRA.’

“And this was the one she said would crack first?” Sam asks, shaking his head as Isaac slides out of the seat again.

“Murphy once spent two days crying on and off about Japanese whaling laws,” Steve says. “Another time he made me stop the van so he could get out and help some ducklings cross a road.”

For the first time since the interrogation started, Sam looks away from the glass, staring at Steve. “And this guy became a HYDRA agent _how_?”

Steve can only shrug. They’ve all asked that question. And none of the HYDRA intel they’ve recovered so far has offered any insight into why Murphy was recruited. Natasha had once jokingly suggested that they told him HYDRA stood for Helping Young, Defenseless, at Risk Animals and he’d bought it hook, line, and sinker.

“Well, if he’s that frail, I really doubt this is an act. Natasha’d have him confessing in about a minute.”

And Isaac definitely isn’t confessing. He’s giggling about something or other, shuffling around in small circles.

“What are we supposed to do now?” Steve rubs at his forehead, feeling stretched thin by all the thoughts pounding in his mind. “Track down their parents, assuming they’re still living? ‘Hey, here’s your kid back—this time, try not to be the sort of person who raises a HYDRA agent’?”

Sam chuckles. “I’d say start by figuring out how they did this and what their plan was.”

Steve thinks back to the explosion. _Dammit, Westfahl!_ Anders had shouted. “I’m not sure they had a plan.” Or maybe that was an act. Maybe this whole thing was just another game to them, as their time on his STRIKE team had been.

“Hell of a thing to happen by accident.”

The door opens and Isaac practically hops out, followed after by a resigned Natasha. “Once, Murphy teared up because I glared at him when he bumped into me in the hallway,” she says. “He definitely isn’t hiding anything.”

“’Merica!” Isaac’s tugging on Steve’s leg again. “Up! _¡Quiero_ up!”

Steve tries not to think of Murphy as he lifts the boy. Tries not to think of the missions they took together, of the hurt and humiliation that burned through him when he learned all those friendships were lies. This child isn’t that person. Not yet. And maybe never now.

Isaac plays with the collar of Steve’s suit for a bit before squirming and frowning. “ _Tengo hambre._ ”

Sam reaches out and ruffles the kid’s hair. “They’re all probably hungry by now. Want me to run by a McDonald’s or something? Not the healthiest, I know, but a Happy Meal might keep ‘em entertained.”

“Thanks.” Isaac, apparently inspired by Sam’s example, is now running his little fingers through Steve’s hair. “Wait. Get Murphy a grilled cheese or something. No, damn. Their cheese probably isn’t ethically sourced.” The ice cream earlier likely wasn’t either. “You know what, just get something for the rest of them. I’ll make him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or something.”

Sam blinks.

“He’s a vegetarian,” Steve explains. “When STRIKE used to do movie nights he made us all watch that Earthlings documentary.”

“And he joined HYDRA.” Sam shakes his head. “All right, I’ll be back. Have fun with your pint-size terrorists.”

“ _¿Quieres un emparedado?_ ” Steve asks Isaac, trying not to look into the eyes that are so clearly Murphy’s now that he allows himself to see it.

Isaac grins, wiggling in excitement. “ _¡Si!_ ”

Steve’s not sure if peanut butter and jelly is okay either—jelly has sugar, and he’s pretty sure at least one of Murphy’s lectures revolved around ‘the wrong kind of sugar’—but right now his priority is getting the kid fed before he can start crying. “Then let’s take a ride in the elevator.”

He tries not to think about the identity of the child eating a sandwich in his kitchen. Surprisingly, that’s not so difficult.

When they return, Maria and Natasha are watching the other kids. They’re getting fussy from hunger, but there aren’t any tears or meltdowns yet. Thankfully, Sam returns before any sobbing starts, and the kids mob him at the door as he distributes the bags.

“Here you go, little man,” he says, giving Isaac a bag with apple slices and one of the toddler toys. To Steve, he adds, “I was gonna get him fries, but I wasn’t sure if they made them in the same oil as the nuggets.”

For a while, the only sounds in the room are slurping and chewing. Sam got food for the adults as well, so Steve settles down with a cheeseburger. Westfahl tries to steal Brock’s toy at one point and Brock punches him in the head, but after Maria intervenes, there are no further issues.

Until Steve hears sniffling from the corner.

Isaac’s in tears, a half-eaten apple slice in his hand.

“What’s wrong, buddy?” Steve asks, coming over. “ _¿Qué pasa?_ Do you need the potty?”

Wiping his nose on the back of his hand, Isaac shakes his head. “Wanna burger,” he sniffles.

Steve stares, floored. It never occurred to him that there was a point in Murphy’s life when he was willing to eat meat. In retrospect, it seems obvious, but Steve had always assumed Murphy sprang from the womb with a handful of alfalfa sprouts and a pamphlet about the cruelty of factory farms.

He’s tempted to give the kid a bite of his cheeseburger. But it feels wrong, somehow, like feeding pork to a kosher Jew. “It would make you sick, Isaac. _Enfermo_.”

Isaac scrunches up his forehead. “Had it before?”

Great. Maybe enough repetition will convince the kid that he has a newfound intolerance for meat. “Listen, sometimes people get sick from some foods, okay? Even foods they used to eat and feel fine. And meat would make you sick now. That’s what the computer that looked at you said. But you can have all kinds of other stuff, I promise. Just not meat. I don’t want you to feel sick. If you’re good, I’ll get you cookies, okay?”

Isaac sniffs again. “ _Me gustan_ cookies.”

“We’ll get you cookies,” Steve promises, and the tears completely stop.

If only everything about this situation could be so easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations for the Spanish are as follows:
> 
>  _Rojo, bonito rojo_ : Red, pretty red  
>  _Tengo hambre_ : I'm hungry  
>  _¿Quieres un emparedado?_ : Do you want a sandwich?  
>  _¿Qué pasa?_ : What's wrong?  
>  _Enfermo_ : Sick  
>  _Me gustan_ cookies: I like cookies
> 
>  _Earthlings_ is a 2005 American documentary about humanity's use of animals in various industries (food, clothing, etc.). It is definitely a Google at your own risk film, as even the trailers display horrific footage of animal abuse.
> 
> What Murphy meant when he referred to the "wrong kind of sugar" is that many cane sugars sold in the US are filtered through bone char from cows as part of the refining process. Organic sugar, sugar in the raw, and beet sugar are not filtered this way.


	6. Chapter 6

“That’s not the right spoon,” Cynthia snaps, and Jack moves his hand away. “That’s the _soup_ spoon, not the teaspoon.”

“Why do we even _have_ soup spoons?” Brock demands. His elbows are resting on the table, his face the picture of dismay. “There’s no soup. There’s no tea! This is fucking stupid.”

“It’s _my_ turn to pick the game.” Cynthia is only an inch taller than Brock, but somehow without even moving, she makes it seem more like a full foot. “Mr. Sam said _I_ could pick the next game, and I say we’re having a tea party. So suck it up.”

Brock just sighs and slumps back in his chair.

Watching all of this on a holographic view screen in Tony’s lab, Steve does the same.

It’s been two days since the incident. All of machinery from the room in the HYDRA base where Steve found the children has been hauled in, and Tony and Bruce have set to work trying to figure out what caused this and if it can be reversed. Natasha’s checking with her sources to see if anyone has an idea where Anders might be. Steve and Sam have mostly been working to keep the children calm.

That endeavor, at least, has been on the whole successful. Last night Isaac started crying for his mother, but after a half hour or so of being carried around by Natasha, he’d fallen deeply asleep. The kids have no idea who Iron Man or Hawkeye _are_ , but archery and robotic suits have still captivated their interests. And they have each other as distractions.

Though that carries its own set of risks.

Cynthia is bossy and crafty enough that, without JARVIS’s constant monitoring, she’d be able to weasel her way out of anything. Brock is sullen and withdrawn, though quick to take charge whenever the opportunity presents itself. Jack is quiet, and it isn’t a rare sight to see him retreat to a corner, hands over his ears. He never looks happy either, and Steve guesses he’s more lonely for his family than he’s let on. Last night, he and Brock had seemed ready to come to blows over the last dinner roll, but something seemed to shift in their interactions at that point, and all morning they’ve been near to each other. Westfahl is constantly trying to assert authority over Cynthia and Isaac. And Isaac’s just young enough to be a constant annoyance to the others.

“Sit _down_ ,” Cynthia orders and Isaac, who’d been squirming out of his chair, immediately settles. He’s worked out that the more he listens to the bigger kids, the more they like him. It makes Steve’s chest ache.

“Now,” Cynthia continues, setting down her teapot and glancing around at the coffee mugs on the table. “Who wants sugar?”

“This is a dumb girls’ game,” Westfahl says, pushing his mug away. It slides across the table’s surface, stopping just before it falls off the edge. “I’m gonna do something _not_ dumb.”

Cynthia kicks her foot out, striking the legs of Westfahl’s chair. It upends, sending Westfahl crashing to the floor along with it.

Steve’s immediately standing before he remembers that he’s in the lab, watching all this through a live feed.

On the screen, Sam walks into the frame. “Hey,” he says. “If you kids can’t play nice, we’re not gonna play at all, got it?”

“But he called my game dumb!” Cynthia protests.

“She pushed me!” Westfahl wails from the floor.

“How can you watch that unmuted?” Tony asks, wiping grease from his hands.

Steve glances away from the screen, sitting back down. “Reparation, I guess. Bucky’s mother always used to say people should be cursed with kids just like themselves. And I was a little hellspawn.”

“You’re telling me _Captain America_ wasn’t born a brown-nosing little do-gooder?” Tony pulls a stool from the nearest workbench, settling down beside him. “I call bullshit.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Try being a little kid with chronic pain who’s not allowed to do half the stuff the other kids are because of his health. See how pleasant and well-behaved you are.”

“I’d use the deaging machine on you just to get Captain Temper Tantrum on tape, but that’d be a little too mad scientist.” Tony glances over his hands, setting down the grease rag. “Plus, little you might bite my ankles.”

“Have you figured out how the machine works?” Steve asks, holding in a sigh. He didn’t _bite_ as a kid. He may well have swiped a screwdriver and dismantled everything in reach out of spite, though.

“JARVIS is running scans now. My theory is, your little friends were trying to take Rumlow back to where he was just before all the barbequing. Or they were dumb enough to play with HYDRA science experiments they didn’t know a thing about.”

Again, Steve remembers Anders shouting. _Dammit, Westfahl!_ “That’s sadly plausible.”

“And these are the people who hid in SHIELD for decades?” Tony shakes his head. “What was their strategy: be so blatant that people felt too stupid to point out the elephant in the room?”

“Speaking of blatant,” says Natasha, and both Steve and Tony jump. “Look what we just got in the mail.”

She sets a box down on the table. There’s no return address, and the recipients’ names are simply listed as STRIKE. Gingerly, Steve reaches over and opens the box.

Squids.

Inside the box are five small, crocheted squids in various colors. One has a catlike mouth embroidered on its front. One’s sporting a scar. One’s eyes are lopsided.

Anders’s boyfriend, Steve knows, crochets.

“No stamp.” Natasha takes a seat on the opposite side of the table. “No postal code. Either Anders is in the city or she has a connection who is.”

“So she risked delivering a package to give us squids?” Steve casts a glance at the view screen; Sam’s moved the chairs away from the table and seems to have coaxed the kids into a game of Duck, Duck, Goose. “Why? What’s the _point_?”

She shrugs. “There’s nothing inside them but cotton fluff. No code I can see in the stitching. She had to know we wouldn’t deliver them to the kids, so I’m guessing this is just her way of saying she’s still out there.”

“With a cephalopod calling card.” Tony slides his stool back, standing. “You know, the people who hate me just go for straight up murder and ruin. I can’t decide if I’m jealous or relieved.”

He walks off, leaving Steve and Natasha to stare down into the squid box.

“Stuffed animals aren’t a bad idea, though,” Steve muses. “Isaac would probably have an easier time sleeping if he had something to hug.” And, unlike the vegetarianism, they know his love of kittens is already present.

“You’re not getting attached, are you?”

Her tone is joking, but Steve doesn’t doubt that’s a serious warning. No, he’s not getting attached. They’re going to come back to themselves and then they’re all going to prison. He just wants the innocent children to be comfortable until that time arrives.

“I’m not,” he says, returning his focus to the view screen.

Jack puts his hand on Brock’s head, shouting “Goose!” as he breaks into a run. Brock bolts up, tripping over his feet in the process, and slams into the table. Westfahl’s coffee mug, jolted, goes crashing to the floor.

Brock is still, looking down at the broken pieces of ceramic.

Then, wide-eyed, he does run. Right out of the room.


	7. Chapter 7

JARVIS informs Steve that Brock’s taken refuge in a custodial closet on the same floor. He didn’t try the elevators, maybe out of panic or maybe from fear that JARVIS would stop them. Steve can hear the boy breathing as he approaches the door, in rapid, shallow little gasps. Each breath fans the flame of anger in Steve’s chest: what _happened_ to this kid, to make him so afraid of a simple accident? Who frightened him so badly?

Gently, Steve knocks on the door. “Hey, Brock. Buddy. It’s Steve. You’re not in any trouble, I promise. Can I come in?”

Total silence. Brock must be holding his breath. Steve stomps down his anger. It won’t help anything. It would just scare Brock more. “Brock? I’m going to open the door, okay? I won’t come inside unless you want me to. You’re really not in trouble, honey.”

Nothing. Slowly, Steve inches the door open.

Brock’s cowering in a corner, half hidden behind a mop bucket. He’s curled in tight on himself, and the fear—the _expectation_ —in his eyes pierces Steve right to the core. As the hall’s light floods into the closet, Steve can make out the glisten of recent tears on his cheeks.

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” Brock’s voice isn’t trembling or small like the rest of him. He sounds angry, confrontational, as he had when he’d said superheroes didn’t exist. Steve used to do that himself when the bullies had hold of him. He can guess who taught Brock that boys don’t cry, who told him to man up. “It wasn’t my fault! I didn’t even wanna have a fucking tea party!”

“I know,” Steve says. He settles back, still in sight but leaving the doorway wide open, so Brock won’t feel trapped. “It was just an accident, Brock. No one’s mad at you. If you feel like coming out, we can clean up the broken pieces, but that’s it. No one’s going to punish you.”

Brock just scoffs, looking down at his feet. One of his shoes is untied.

“I promise. Captain America doesn’t lie, does he?”

When Brock raises his head, the look in his eyes is both so hopeful and so wary that it threatens to break Steve’s chest open. This little boy can’t even conceive adults being honest with him. He expects disinterest and pain the way kids in the Depression would expect to go to bed with empty bellies. The need to hug Brock is almost overwhelming, but that would only scare him, so Steve sits on his hands. “Guess so.”

“That’s right. You can trust me.” He smiles. “And you can come out. I won’t let anything bad happen. It’s my job to keep everybody safe.”

He doesn’t come out, but Brock does unwrap his arms from around his shins, reaching down to tie his shoe.

“Need help?” Steve asks, still not moving.

“I can do it myself!”

Brock’s probably _had_ to do it himself from the second he knew how shoes were tied. Steve wonders if anyone bothered to teach him, or if it was something the kid had to pick up on his own. “I know you can. I just like to help people, that’s all.”

Scowling, Brock tugs hard on his laces. “I’m not worth it.”

It takes every ounce of control Steve has to keep from grabbing onto the boy to hug him. His body trembles faintly with the restraint. “That’s not true, Brock.” His voice is firm, and he waits until Brock looks up to continue. “If anyone’s ever made you feel like you’re not worth it, they were wrong. I like you and I want you to be happy.”

He stands up, silent, and just stares back at Steve for the longest time. “Why do you care about some dumb kid?”

“I don’t, Brock. I care about you.”

“ _Why_?” he snaps. The walls come up so fast.

“Because I like you.” It’s so hard to keep smiling. He wants to track down Brock’s parents and slam his shield into the mouths that told this little boy he wasn’t worth it. “And because there _aren’t_ any dumb kids. Everyone deserves an equal chance. Everyone should feel loved and wanted.”

Brock’s lip quivers. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“What if it could?”

“Huh?”

“What if you could stay here?” And he will: they’re not relocating the children while Tony’s examining the machine. He can’t bring Brock’s parents to justice for their crimes. Steve’s not even sure if they’re still living, since Rumlow never spoke about his parents. Besides, the statute of limitations for their abuse must be long since passed. But Steve can damn well ensure that every moment this child spends in the tower is comforting and safe. “For as long as you wanted. And you’d never have to go back to the people who hurt you.”

Brock’s response is immediate. “My dad loves—”

“It’s okay.” Steve settles a hand on his shoulder; he can’t help himself. “You don’t have to tell me anything that you don’t want to, Brock. But you don’t have to leave, either. You can stay here instead of going home, I promise.”

Under Steve’s hand, Brock’s shaking. “But my dad—”

“Your dad can’t make Captain America break a promise.”

And then Brock’s hugging him. Steve knows it’s not possible for such a little boy to knock the wind from his lungs, but that’s what it feels like. He smiles back, letting Brock bury his face against Steve’s neck. Letting him cling and tremble and cry. “I—I wanna stay.”

“You can. I want you to.”

And for a long while, they stay like that, silent.

Then Steve feels a child’s sneaker slam into his back.

“Off Brock!” Jack shouts. “Was an accident!”

He’s pounding his little fists against Steve’s skull when Brock catches his hands. “Jack, it’s okay! He wasn’t hurting me, he’s nice!”

Jack just frowns. Steve cranes his head back for a better look, and belatedly realizes he’s opened himself up to a black eye. Or would have if a kid could bruise him.

“He’s nice, Jack,” Brock insists. “He’s a superhero.”

Jack’s scowl lifts a little as he steps back. “You sure?”

This is the most Steve’s heard Jack speak since he laid eyes on the kid. His voice is odd. Maybe he had a speech impediment growing up. “You two want to go back with the other kids?” he asks. “We can clean up the mug.”

“Sam ‘ready cleaned it,” Jack says, taking Brock’s hand.

Steve watches them retreat down the hall when reality comes crashing down. However cute they are as children, however heartrending, they’re still STRIKE agents. They’ve still committed heinous crimes and tried to aid the murder of millions. And once Tony finds a way to turn them back, they’ll be going to prison.

He can’t let himself grow attached. Kind, but not attached. He can’t lose sight of the facts again.

But Steve also can’t keep himself from wondering what could have been if Brock had a hero to save him the first time he was a child.


	8. Chapter 8

After the mug incident, Steve decides it would be best if the kids spent some time coloring. Coloring can’t possibly turn out traumatic, right?

“Where’s the yellow crayon?” Cynthia demands. She seems to be drawing herself with the Iron Man armor, but Steve can’t be sure as the figure doesn’t yet have any hair.

“Here.” Westfahl rolls it toward her. “It kinda got mixed up with the black, so it might be more greenish now.”

She kicks at him under the table and misses, just brushing Steve’s shin instead. “Darn it, Westie!”

“Play nicely,” Steve warns, and Cynthia huffs. Across the table, Brock is drawing something Steve can’t make out. There’s a lot of red and black.

Isaac’s abandoned the table in favor of pressing his face and hands against the windows. He’d made some incomprehensible green and pink scribblings that he called _gato_ -kitties, but the crayons couldn’t keep his attention. He seems to spend a lot of time wandering and banging on things. It’s been too long since Steve’s been around toddlers for him to remember if that’s developmentally normal.

“The yellow crayon’s _ruined_ ,” Cynthia intones. She makes it sound as though the world’s ending.

“You could use the orange,” Steve suggests, and the stare he receives in response is absolutely withering.

Maybe attracted by their conversation, Isaac comes back to the table, climbing up into a chair beside Jack. Jack’s been silent since they started the coloring, focused on the farmyard he’s creating. Steve doesn’t think he’s looked up once since he first pressed a crayon to the page.

That changes when Isaac shouts. “ _Cow_!”

Each of the kids jolts. Jack, drawn in on himself, turns to Isaac, positively glaring.

Isaac, oblivious, points to the picture. “Cow! Cow! _¡Vaca!_ ”

There is a cow; Isaac’s hand is practically on top of it. Jack tenses and for a second Steve thinks he’s about to smack the toddler’s hand away, but then he just exhales, shifting further away. Across the table, Westfahl grumbles, “What’s so great about some dumb cow?”

“Cow!” Isaac shouts again, but this time he’s not the only one yelling.

“Not dumb!”

It’s Jack now. The other children look at him, and Westfahl seems about to speak before he shuts his mouth. Jack is a good few inches bigger, and far broader.

“My parents have cows,” Jack continues, clearly agitated. He’s waving his hands, fingers twitching, and Steve prays that no one will mention that or his speech impediment. It could come to blows if anyone does. “Farmers. Not dumb.”

“He’s right,” Brock says before anyone can speak, banging his hand on the table. “We wouldn’t have food without farmers. He’s got cows. What do _you_ have?”

Westfahl’s silent. Isaac’s staring at Jack as though he’s just said his pockets are full of candy. “Have cows?”

Jack doesn’t answer straight away. He’s staring at Brock, the tension finally draining out of him before he turns to Isaac. “Yeah. Buncha cows.”

“Do they make milk?” Cynthia asks. “Or do you eat them?”

“Don’t eat ours. Take ‘em to a...” Jack falters, flapping his hands again, annoyance seeping back into his features. “A...sl—slaughterhouse. Just buy meat.”

“What’s laughterhouse?” Isaac asks.

“ _Slaughterhouse_ ,” Brock corrects. “It’s where they kill cows for food.”

Isaac tilts his head. He’d been standing in his chair, twisting and moving and craning to see the other kids pictures, but now he stops. “Cows make food?”

Westfahl chimes in before Steve can change the subject. “They make _burgers_ , stupid. Don’t you know anything?”

A slow blink. Isaac looks back down at Jack’s picture. “Burgers are cows?”

“Yeah. _Duh_.”

“But...” Screwing his face up, he looks from the cow to Westfahl, and then back down. “Cows’re too big.”

Westfahl rolls his eyes, shooting all the other kids a ‘can you believe this’ look. “That’s why they cut ‘em _up_ , dummy.”

That’s when the screaming starts.

Steve dives into action, scooping Isaac from his seat and carrying him to the corner of the room. The view out the window does nothing to quiet his tears, even when Steve asks if he can name the colors of the cars in the street below. He just sniffles and wails as Steve gently bounces him. “ _¡No como_ cows! _¡No daño!_ ”

“Sweetie, _no comes vacas_ , remember? The burger you had yesterday was made of beans.”

Isaac only howls.

“This is your fucking fault, Westfahl,” Brock snaps.

“Language,” says Steve.

“But it is!”

“Is not!” Westfahl protests. “It’s not my fault Isaac’s stupid!”

Jack lets out a frustrated grunt and makes a gesture at Westfahl. It’s not obscene and it’s not random movement. He’s _signing_ , Steve realizes. Steve doesn’t know the sign—in his time, the deaf and hard of hearing were taught oralism, not ASL—but that’s definitely signing. Is he hard of hearing? That might explain his manner of speech.

“Why do you do that with your hands?” Cynthia asks. “It’s weird.”

“It’s sign language,” Jack says, glowering.

Brock frowns. “But you’re not deaf, right?”

“No!” Jack ducks his head back down, staring at his picture. “Parents are. And my brother.”

That explains a lot. Steve almost can’t hear Isaac’s crying over the gears turning in his head. Jack’s five right now. He may not yet be in kindergarten, or he may have just started. If the majority of his time prior to elementary school was spent at home, he could be much more used to signing than speaking. And he may not have heard many people speaking at all in his life.

“That’s really cool, Jack,” Steve says, rubbing Isaac’s back. “I wish I knew how to sign.”

Jack won’t look at him. “Shut up.”

“No, really, I do. I had problems hearing when I was growing up, and they wouldn’t let us learn it.”

“Don’t have problems now,” Jack snaps.

“Remember Hawkeye?” Steve asks, raising his voice to be clearly hear over the sobbing. “Mr. Clint? With the arrows? He lost eighty percent of his hearing in an accident.”

Jack raises his head.

“He lip reads a lot,” Steve continues. “And sometimes JARVIS helps him understand what people say. But he knows how to sign. Here, why don’t I take Isaac somewhere else to calm down and let Mr. Clint watch you? You two can talk and maybe you can teach your friends some things.”

For a long time, Jack just stares. Finally, his gaze softens a little and he nods. “’Kay.”

Steve has JARVIS call for Clint and explain the situation. He takes Isaac to the next room over and pulls up Netflix, searching through their selection of Disney cartoons. Steve’s unfamiliar with most them—he’s still catching up with all he’s missed and pop culture isn’t the highest thing on his list—but how traumatic can Disney be?

“Look,” he says, settling Isaac on the couch and pointing to one of the movies. “There’s a deer. You wanna watch a little deer?”

Wiping his nose on his sleeve, Isaac manages a shaky “Uh-huh.”

“Absolutely not,” says Natasha from the doorway. “Do you _want_ him to scream all night?”

Steve sighs. “What should I show him, then?”

“Make room, old timer.” Natasha shoves at his shoulder, sinking onto the couch between them. “I’ve got this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations for the Spanish are as follows:
> 
>  _Vaca_ : Cow  
>  _¡No como_ cows! _¡No daño!_ : I don't eat cows! No hurt!  
>  _No comes vacas_ : You don't eat cows


	9. Chapter 9

The thunder’s loud enough to rattle the windows. Steve rolls over in the bed to glance at his alarm clock. 4:48 AM. And the storm’s been raging for an hour with no signs of stopping.

**CAPTAIN ROGERS?**

He rolls again to face the ceiling, as though JARVIS isn’t anywhere and everywhere at once. “Yeah? Is the rain letting up?”

**NOT ACCORDING TO CURRENT REPORTS. HOWEVER, MASTER ROLLINS HAS LEFT HIS BED.**

Steve sits up at that, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. JARVIS doesn’t report late night bathroom breaks, so Jack must be headed somewhere he isn’t meant to be. “Where’s he going, Clint’s room?” Jack and Clint have been nearly inseparable over the past week, to the point that Brock’s started snapping at others and complaining about ‘fucking stupid arrows.’

**HE APPEARS TO BE HEADED TOWARD MASTER RUMLOW’S BEDROOM, CAPTAIN.** As JARVIS speaks, a view screen flickers into life, displaying a security feed from the floor where the children are sleeping. Steve can just make out Jack’s small form shuffling toward Brock’s bed, illuminating by a flash of lightning, when the thunder sounds again and the boy dives under Brock’s covers.

After seeing Jack react to loud _voices,_ Steve can only imagine how much he hates storms. He ought to bring the kid some earplugs.

“Huh?” Brock asks drowsily, sitting up. “Jack? What’re you—”

“Shut up,” Jack says, pulling the blankets around himself.

Brock rubs at his eyes. “You scared of storms?”

“Fuck off,” Jack says. He learned that from Brock. “Making sure _you_ weren’t scared.”

“Anybody else awake? Cindy or Izzy?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Westfahl?”

“Fuck Westfahl.”

Thunder again. Jack pulls the blanket over his head.

“You know,” says Brock, “if you really _had_ to, you could hold onto me. Just to be sure I’m not scared.”

Smiling, Steve lies back down. “I think they’re fine, JARVIS. Let me know if anything else changes.”

The view screen disappears. **I’LL BE SURE TO DO SO, CAPTAIN ROGERS.**

By breakfast time, the sun is out, and the city looks remarkably dry considering the night’s rainfall. Sam glances at the weather report on his tablet. “Sunny skies until tomorrow,” he reports. “We oughta let these kids run around Central Park. Burn off some energy.”

“I don’t know if that’s the best idea. Brock, _no_.” Steve gives the boy a look and Brock lowers the spoon he’d been readying as a catapult back into his cereal. Okay, so the children are stir-crazy after a week indoors, even in a place as captivating as the Avengers’ Tower. But they’re also dangerous fugitives, or they could be. Steve has to keep telling himself that. Letting them run around New York is asking for things to go awry.

And if something happens to the kids out there, he won’t be able to forgive himself.

“Live a little.” Sam wipes some oatmeal from Isaac’s face with a napkin. “It’d be nice! You’d get a chance to relax, they’d get some fresh air. Izzy can tell us the Spanish names for squirrels and pigeons and Jack can teach us how to sign them.”

“I wanna go out!” Cynthia declares, standing up in her chair. “My mommy lets me play outside as long as I want after school!”

“Noted, princess,” says Sam. “But little girls who fall off their chairs and bang themselves up don’t get to play outside. And neither do kids who don’t finish breakfast.”

They all look at their meals with newfound determination.

Steve sighs. “I just don’t—”

“Hey there, Rip Van Winkle!” A screen displaying Tony’s face materializes in the center of the kitchen, making Westfahl and Brock jump. “I’ve got—” the hologram glances to the children and Tony stumbles over his words. “An, uh, update-ay on the achine-may.”

“Ass een may!” Isaac repeats from his chair, and now it’s Tony that Steve’s giving a look.

“Eh, he was gonna learn it somewhere anyway.” Tony shrugs as the children giggle. “Nat’s already down here. Can you stop by once you’re done?”

“I’ll watch the kids,” Sam adds. “Me and Maria. That’s one adult for every two and a half kids, Steve, and it’s not like we don’t have training. We can handle a field trip. Trust me.”

He does trust Sam. Maria too. Steve nods. “Okay. Can you get the dishes cleared up here?”

“Nice. I offer to babysit and you saddle me with the chores. Just walk all over me.”

Steve just smirks and turns to go.

When he reaches the door, he feels little hands grab hold of him. Looking down, he finds Brock wrapped around his leg. “I wanna see the lab with you. I like that stuff. Robots are cool.”

Smiling, Steve reaches down to ruffle his hair. “Don’t you want to go outside for once? The robots will be here when you get back.”

“But you won’t be at the park,” Brock whines, pouting.

“I’ll be here when you get back too.” Steve glances around before leaning down to Brock and adding in a whisper, “Besides, who else can I trust to protect the other kids? What if Izzy sees a hot dog and starts crying? You’re the best at calming him down.”

Brock is absolutely beaming as he heads back to finish his Froot Loops.

“You let them go to Central Park?” Natasha asks as soon as Steve sets foot in the lab.

“Sam and Maria are watching them,” Steve points out, crossing his arms. “They’re just a bunch of kids. _Untrained_ kids,” he adds before Natasha can say anything. “And that’s not what we’re here for, anyway. Tony, you figured out how the machine works?”

“I figured out how it worked days ago, Spangles.” Tony’s in front of the machine now, fiddling with some knobs. “I tried to tell you all about, remember? And you said I was completely incomprehensible. Society today, no sense of scientific inquiry, I tell you. Sad, really. But anyway: what I couldn’t figure out was how to make it go backward or forward a set amount of time. And now I’ve worked that out.” He pauses.

Steve waits.

“No need to applaud me, I can reverse-engineer HYDRA tech in my sleep. No need for a thanks, either. The point is, as soon as your little rugrats get back from their playtime, I can turn ‘em back to a bunch of surly would-be dictators.” He pauses again.

Steve opens his mouth. Then bites his lip. Then forces out the words. “Do we have to?”


	10. Chapter 10

“Steve,” Natasha begins.

“Hear me out,” he says. Steve hasn’t sat down. He’s still standing before the machine and it takes all his control not to tear it apart.

“You’re letting your emotions cloud your judgment.” Natasha stays seated, arms crossed. “Whatever they were like as children, you’ve seen what they become. Yeah, they’re cute. And they were willing to ensure the deaths of millions.”

Steve resists the urge to tug at his hair in frustration. His skin feels stretched, his muscles too tight, but he can’t tear at himself or the space around him to release the building tension. It won’t help make his point. Not that he thinks Natasha’s ever going to budge, but Tony’s the one who controls the machine. Tony’s the one he has to sway, and breaking things in the man’s lab won’t persuade him. “You make it sound so simple.”

“Because it is.”

“You’ve seen them, Nat.” More than seen them. Yesterday she braided Cynthia’s hair. Two days before that, she’d held Murphy over her head and spun him around, playing helicopter. Hell, she’d even let Westfahl hold onto her shoulders for a swim around the pool. “You can’t tell me you don’t feel anything for these kids.”

“Yes.” Her face displays that consistent, unreadable calm that she wears so well. Steve’s often wondered if that guarding is to protect herself from the scrutiny of others or to close off her own emotions. He can’t help wondering it again now. “I do. For these _kids_. But they weren’t kids when they made the choice to join HYDRA, Steve. Whatever happened in their lives, they acted with their own free will. Not everyone’s an innocent pawn like the Winter Soldier. As kids? I like them. And my heart breaks for them, knowing what they’ll become. But as adults? I don’t care if they’re redeemable. I don’t care who failed them growing up. If we want to make a better system, we can’t shield anyone from due justice just because we like them.”

Intellectually, she’s right. But no amount of intellect can erase the memory of Isaac sobbing for his mother. Of Westfahl needing coaxing to get into the pool, equally afraid of drowning and sharks. Of Brock sobbing into Steve’s side, undone by a hero who’d shown up to rescue him over forty years late.

“So in this better system,” he asks, “there aren’t second chances? Isn’t the point of prison to rehabilitate? To put people back into society?”

“Or to keep society safe from them.” Resting her elbows on the table, Natasha sighs. She lets her guard slip for just a moment—it must be intentional—and she looks exhausted. “They tried to kill millions, Steve. And that was just the end goal. Who knows the full extent of what they did in the buildup? Is it fair to their victims, to anyone we’re meant to protect, to let them go free because they’re cute when they’re prepubescent?”

“They’re not those people now.”

Natasha gives him a sad little smile. “They will be.”

For the first time since the debate started, Tony speaks. “We don’t know that.”

They both turn to face him. “What?” Steve asks.

“Not for sure.” Tony adjusts one of the dials, steps back, then sits on the edge of the table. “Theoretically, sure, I age ‘em back up, and they’re the same traitorous assholes you know and loathe. But for all I know, interacting with them as kids, bringing them here, has thrown off their whole histories. I mean, it’s just as possible they could grow up as completely different people. Or not remember a damn thing from their regressed ages to the present.”

Steve feels his stomach lurch. “Then we’d be transporting a six year old boy into a burn victim’s body and he wouldn’t know why! That’s not justice, Nat, that’s torture!”

Her face has gone a little pale. “There has to be a way to test it. To know what’ll happen.”

“Oh, sure,” Tony says mildly. “I have all kinds of plans to test it. I was thinking we’d get a trained dog, one none of us has ever seen before, take it back to its early puppy days, and then see if it still knows all the same tricks when we make it grow back up. If it recognizes us. Tests like that.”

Steve exhales to a count of ten. “Why didn’t you say that from the start?”

“Well, I was planning to, but you guys interrupted my science lesson with your moral dilemmas.”

“If they won’t remember,” Steve says firmly, “or if there’s any indication they’d be different people when we change them back, then we’re not doing it.”

Natasha nods. “So what are you planning to do with them in that case? Start a daycare? Adopt them all?”

“Find someone to care for them. They’re innocent children. They deserve to be loved and protected.”

**PARDON THE INTERRUPTION, SIR,** JARVIS says, a touch more rapidly than his usual speech, **BUT WE HAVE A SITUATION.**

*

In the tower’s medical bay, Sam’s lying on a bed, an icepack behind his head like a pillow. Mild concussion, Bruce said. Maria lies on another cot, vivid bruises blooming on her throat.

“Never saw it coming,” Sam groans. “I bent down to tie Isaac’s shoe and bam. Like a iron beam to the skull.”

“Didn’t see Anders ‘til she nailed me in the throat,” Maria rasps. Her eyes are bloodshot. “Only caught a glimpse when I was passing out. Damn fast little—”

“And you don’t know who was with her?” Steve’s pacing, fighting the urge to wring his hands. “You don’t know which way they went?”

“I created fake identities for the kids in case someone abducted them,” Natasha says. She’s got one of Tony’s Starkpads, typing rapidly. “NYPD already put up roadblocks. There’s APBs out, pictures of the kids on every network. We’ll find them, Steve.”

Steve can’t answer. The children didn’t recognize Anders at the base. They wouldn’t recognize her at the park either. They weren’t taken in by a trusted friend; they were forcefully, frighteningly abducted. They must be sobbing, panicked. His lungs are constricting at the thought.

“‘Now,’” Sam says, eyes wrenched shut. “Just before I got hit, I heard a woman yell now. I thought it was someone scolding a kid or a dog or something, from the tone. Must have been your girl’s lackey.”

“She had a cat,” Maria wheezes. “Little kitten. Pulled it out of a purse...I think it was orange.”

Steve stops pacing.

“Of course,” he mutters. “She knew just what each of the kids would respond to.” Anders had worked with them for years, after all. She knew Murphy loved cats. How easy had it been for her, even after assaulting their guardians, to gain those children’s trust?

“Think she brought Axe for Rumlow?” Natasha asks flatly.

Steve doesn’t admonish her. He can see in her eyes that she’s as worried for the children as he is.

“What do you think she wants with them?” Bruce joins in for the first time since his diagnosis of Sam, gently examining Maria’s throat. “Is she enough of a true believer to raise them for HYDRA all over again, or do you think she’d just flee the country?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Steve sets his jaw. He thinks of the picture Brock colored days ago, red and black and unrecognizable. He’d given it to Steve when he finished. It’s still hanging on Steve’s refrigerator. And it will stay there until the day when Brock draws something bright, something hopeful, and puts that in Steve’s hands. “Because we’re going to find them. We’re going to save them and give them a second chance.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [You're Not the Boss of Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5439878) by [Musings_of_a_Monster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Musings_of_a_Monster/pseuds/Musings_of_a_Monster)




End file.
